Martha Stretton

[Jonathan Shedler @JonathanShedler]

Some therapists speak of

trauma work
shadow work
family of origin work
dream work
parts work
attachment work

as if they were separate things or special skills.

Psychodynamic therapists don’t use these terms. They’re all just the bread and butter of psychotherapy.

*Any* meaningful course of psychotherapy includes all or most of these elements.

We also have a special name for these ways of working. We call it “psychotherapy.”

[Jonathan Shedler @JonathanShedler]

The fundamental insight of psychoanalysis is that the mind is divided against itself.

We are of many minds. We have conflicting and contradictory motives. That was Freud, circa 1900. No living person originated this insight. It does not belong to any therapy "brand."

Generations of psychotherapists have refined this understanding and developed ways of applying it in psychotherapy to help patients become more self-aware and whole.

It is not proprietary knowledge, you don’t need to become a devotee of a therapy acronym, and you don’t need a certification from a for-profit business.

This insight goes back to the early 1900s and is the starting point of all psychotherapy approaches that work toward greater self-awareness and wholeness.

[Jonathan Shedler @JonathanShedler]

The tragedy of the psychotherapy professions:

Serious clinicians do their work in private and focus on developing their clinical skills.

Therapy influencers seek the public spotlight. Their skillset is self-promotion and digital marketing. They are often showmen and profiteers giving a cultural performance of “expert” for a public audience.

Because real psychotherapists work in private while influencers seek the spotlight and consume the oxygen, public perceptions of "therapy" are now shaped by profiteers.

The public is losing the ability to distinguish knowledge from marketing, and so are some in the therapy professions. Many therapy trainees who sincerely want to become skilled psychotherapists and strive for excellence don't know where to turn for quality training or who to trust.

This is the tragedy of the psychotherapy professions. I fear things are only going to get worse.

[Martha Stretton @Marstret]

https://t.co/z582Tmw1hw

[Jonathan Shedler @JonathanShedler]

This wasn’t “therapy.” Kids who had no identified mental health problem got a classroom training program pushed on them that they didn’t ask for and couldn’t opt out of.

So sick of people calling anything and everything “therapy.”

Real psychotherapy
1) happens *in private*,
2) is always voluntary
3) is meant to address a personal MH concern that therapist and patient both agree about.

None of these conditions were met. Stop misleading people by describing it as “therapy.”

[📸🔭Brandon Berkoff🚀✨ @spacebrandonb]

I’m not asking you, I’m telling you.

Take a moment and listen to this 81 second response from Victor Glover after being asked if he had any thoughts leading up to Easter.

I don’t quite think it can be overstated how perfect this crew is for the job.

[Jonathan Shedler @JonathanShedler]

Let’s at least use psych terminology correctly. The phenomenon is not “empathy.” The term is *moral masochism.*
(There’s a good discussion in the newest edition of the Psychodynamic Diagnostic Manual; PDM-3)

[Jonathan Shedler @JonathanShedler]

Therapy brand counts for shit. Within any modality, there are skilled practitioners, incompetent practitioners, and downright destructive practitioners. Choose the therapist, not an acronym.

Also, most patients in research trials who get these instruction-manual-acronym therapies do NOT get well. When treatment is finished, the overwhelming majority still meet criteria for the same diagnosis. Research does NOT show they are more effective than any other legit therapy—only than inert placebo.

An expert therapist works to understand you as an individual and develops treatment for YOU based on that understanding. Look for that expert—not for a brand or acronym.

How to choose a therapist:
https://t.co/fW969NPJWr
some receipts about therapy research:
https://t.co/NGedIGr4W4

[Jonathan Shedler @JonathanShedler]

There is rumination (repetitive, circular, goes nowhere)

There is self-examination leading to new understanding, self-awareness, and change.

They are not the same things.

They are impossible to confuse. One leads to stagnation, one leads to growth. Skilled psychotherapy is the latter, never the former.

It’s beyond me why some people seem so deeply invested in pretending they are the same thing.

It is a false starting assumption. If you reason logically from a false starting assumption, the conclusion will also be false.

[Jonathan Shedler @JonathanShedler]

✍️ https://t.co/y1FcGqPfaz

[Jonathan Shedler @JonathanShedler]

Too bad the the “experts”interviewed for this piece don’t understand unconscious mental life, displacement, and overdetermination.

Skilled therapists focus on underlying psychology, not just surface complaints.

Embarassing that @APA promoted it.
https://t.co/BxJCRKTVrl

[Sami Nathaniel @NathanielSami]

I didn't see that coming.!!!

[Jonathan Shedler @JonathanShedler]

Skilled psychotherapy is yin and yang, head and heart, tough and tender, warm acceptance and cold reason, in continual counterbalance.

Without one, there’s no connection. Without the other, there’s no change.

Today’s therapy culture has lost the balance.

[Jonathan Shedler @JonathanShedler]

“The end result of being driven by electronic devices is a form of... relatedness where we expect others to give us immediate responses and meet our narcissistic needs. Relationships become more superficial.”
—Glen Gabbard

[Jonathan Shedler @JonathanShedler]

If you feel like you never fully “got” the psychoanalytic concept of transference, read this post and it will all become clear.

[Edward A. Perin - Psychologist @DoctorPerin]

We stan for our psychodynamic auntie here

[Martha Stretton @Marstret]

@TrumpGirlOnFire Who is speaking here?

[Martha Stretton @Marstret]

https://t.co/oXHpQThsNj

[Walter Kirn @walterkirn]

Well worth your time

[Jonathan Shedler @JonathanShedler]

It’s fascinating to think about—except that we now have evidence that the study never happened and the findings were likely fabricated.